One Step Behind

by Brianna Labuskes

  When she could not take the gentle torment any longer, she pulled her arms out of his grasp and brought his face to hers for a deep kiss of tongues battling and warring for mutual pleasure. He growled deep in his throat, and an answering awareness tugged at her breasts and womb.

  He shifted back and laughed, glancing around the room. “Shall we try to make it to a bed this time, my dear?”

  “A bed? How novel,” she quipped back, enjoying their banter in the midst of such a passionate interlude. “I suppose we should try it at least once.”

  He laughed, a low rumble against her ear as he bit the lobe and slid his tongue along the rim.

  The spark the slick caress sent along her nerve endings surprised her. Would it feel that way for him? Did she have enough courage to try? There was something about tonight that made her think she could be brave enough to do anything. She mimicked his sensual ministrations, and his groan told her everything she needed to know.

  Suddenly, he turned, still holding her in his strong arms, and in three strides was across the room, tumbling her onto the bed. The soft, silken bedding was cool against her heated skin, and she held up her hand for him to join her.

  “You are so unbelievably beautiful,” he said as he stripped out of his shirt, revealing the contours of his thickly muscled chest. The sight of him above her, his arousal obvious in his skintight breeches, flooded her with longing. She wanted her hands on him. Immediately. Wanted his body pressed to hers. It was an ache that thrummed in time with her frantic pulse.

  Together, they rid her of her nightgown until she was bare beneath his gaze.

  He didn’t touch her at first.

  With someone else, she might have felt self-conscious, or at least the need to cover herself from hungry eyes. But with him—well, with him she felt powerful. Seductive. Safe.

  He devoured her with his eyes, just as she was doing to him. At last, he brought a reverent hand to her breast, grazing the delicate pink nipple that had risen to insistent attention. The tension within her built as he cupped her, nuzzled at her. When he sucked her into his mouth, she couldn’t bite back her mewl of desire.

  A thought crept in as he pulled back, kissing the underside of her breast and then each rib down to her belly. She caught his chin in her hand forcing his gaze up to hers.

  She almost lost her nerve under his heated eyes.

  Tonight she was brave enough to do anything.

  She took a deep breath and blurted it out before her courage could desert her. “Can I—Can I try doing that to you?”

  Mortification threatened when he squeezed his eyes shut tight. But it was chased away when he looked at her again and all she could see was fire.

  He cleared his throat. “You don’t have to, love.”

  “I want to try it,” she said, and he groaned, shifting up so that he could slant his mouth over hers.

  “God, give me strength,” he murmured against her lips. Then he moved so that he was lying back against the pillows and she was straddling his hips. His fingers traced their way over the vertebrae of her spine, and she shivered against him.

  Be brave.

  Taking her lesson from what she had liked, she bent, finding his neck with her open mouth. She licked at the skin there, and the stubble was rough against her tongue, in a good way. She let her teeth sink into the sinew of his shoulder for a moment before shifting down. His skin burned beneath her hands.

  She had never felt more powerful than when he moaned as her teeth grazed over his nipple. It gave her courage. It made her burn. Something about bringing him pleasure like this only served to heighten her own.

  She lingered there before moving down. The muscles of his stomach were taut, and she spread her fingers over them, marveling in the way they bunched beneath her hand.

  But she had more interesting things to see. She’d shifted so that she was between his strong, lean thighs.

  Gemma found him watching her, with a slight smile on his lips. Breathing deep, she reached out a shaking hand and caught him in her fingers. Heated silk, was all she could foolishly think. Her hand tightened reflexively around him when he shifted, and he groaned in response.

  “Ah, love.”

  “Did I hurt you?” she dropped her fingers immediately, horrified at the possibility.

  He laughed, a low rumble that edged on the side of desperate. “Not how you think.”

  He brought her hand back to him, and guided her into a light stroke. It wasn’t enough, though.

  His eyes had drifted closed so he didn’t realize her intent until her mouth covered him. He cried out and his hips rocked up, and she took him deeper. It was pure instinct that had her pull at him with her lips as he rested heavy against her tongue. He was pure tension beneath her hands, and she once again reveled in the way he responded to her. Just as she knew he must when she cried out for him.

  She tried licking along the underside of him, and it seemed to snap his control. Slipping his hands beneath her, he hauled her up so that she was once again astride his hips. He was hard against her bottom.

  She smiled down at him, and he laughed up at her.

  “You are trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “Well, it’s either that or obey you, and we both know where I stand on that particular vow,” she replied.

  “We shall see what we can do about that, wife,” he murmured, and her pulse skittered. Wife. She liked the way that sounded.

  There wasn’t time to linger over the pleasure it gave her, though, because his fingers had found her and were busy building that delicious tension she’d experienced the night in the library.

  She was whimpering within moments, and he smirked at her, clearly pleased. She rocked her hips back against him, and the smile died from his lips, quickly becoming a groan. The result prompted her to try it again. The movement, combined with his fingers, was too much for her. Her head fell back, her curls cascading down her back. He took advantage of her position, one of his hands finding her breast. When he pinched her nipple, she lost all coherent thought.

  “All right, love, all right,” he soothed when she cried out The tips of his fingers slid back down to her hips. “Just…”

  He lifted her slightly so that she was positioned above him. It was a tortuous descent for both of them. He was sweating by the time she was filled to the hilt, their hips all but fused to each other.

  Air. She needed air. She couldn’t quite get enough to properly fill her lungs.

  Moving didn’t help. He was guiding her, helping her find a smooth rocking rhythm that set her blood on fire.

  “So beautiful.” His voice was dazed, and she wondered what she looked like to him. Riding him as she was, her hair wild and loose around her shoulders, her skin flushed in the firelight. She didn’t care if she looked like a wanton. What did propriety matter when he gazed at her like that?

  It only took her a few moments before she was able to set the pace. And then his hands were everywhere, stoking that fire that had been building all night.

  She was on the edge of a cliff and kept toeing closer. This time when she slid down along his length, she stayed there and rocked her hips. He must have sensed she was there, ready to fall into the abyss.

  “Let go, love.” His voice was rough. She found his eyes just as his fingers pressed against her and she obeyed him.

  The moment she did, he followed her off the precipice.

  Only the sound of ragged breathing filled the room. She didn’t think she could say anything even if she wanted to. Though, she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to do anything to disturb the bliss.

  “I believe I have lost the ability to speak, my dear,” he murmured against the top of her head, echoing her own thoughts.

  She laughed, pulling back to peer up at him in amusement. “And yet you disprove your claim with the same breath you use to speak it.”

  “Ah, you and your logic.” He smiled down at her, and it lit up his eyes and made her feel precious. “Those are the on
ly words I can utter. You have left me quite useless otherwise.”

  “Whatever shall I do with myself if you cannot keep me entertained with conversation, my lord?” she flirted. It was an enjoyable feeling, that. Flirting with one’s lover.

  With one’s husband.

  “Mmmm.” His voice rumbled in his chest, tickling her cheek. His heart beat a slow, reassuring tempo against her ear. “I believe I could come up with one or two suggestions of what you could do with your mouth instead of conversing.”

  She blushed but refused to back down from the challenge. “But, my lord, I thought I had rendered you quite speechless.”

  “My suggestions don’t necessarily necessitate words, my dear,” he said, lifting her chin and pulling her mouth to his. The kiss was lazy, as they were both spent and physically exhausted. This wasn’t about lust. This wasn’t about the all-consuming desire that flared between them. It was more than that.

  He pulled back, kissing her forehead, and shifting so that she was curled into his arms at his side.

  “You will be the death of me, woman,” he said. “But, oh, what a sweet death it will be.” The warmth of his body lulled her just as much as the fingers that were rubbing a circle between her shoulder blades. Her cheek was against his heart. She wanted to live in the crook of his arm forever.

  He poked her when she giggled at that thought, but she didn’t tell him what she was laughing at.

  It seemed like she would get her wish, at least for the night, as his breathing evened out. She knew most married couples had separate rooms, but she would have been devastated had he pulled away and gone off to his own. It also seemed they would not put on their nightclothes again, but lay entangled together without a stitch on. She would have predicted she’d be embarrassed by such a notion, but she felt not one whit of discomfort. He was her husband. She had nothing to hide from him, nor he from her.

  They stayed that way for a long time, both lightly caressing and soothing the other. She felt sleep pulling at her relentlessly.

  “Gemma?” he asked just as she was about to drift off into oblivion.

  “Mmmm,” she managed to say, her satiated body wanting to sink into the warmth of him and the bedding. She did not think she would be able to open her eyes if she tried.

  “Why did you marry me?”

  Because I love you. She thought the words as sleep claimed her.

  …

  Lucas stilled. The words were uttered so softly he almost missed them, but they burned their way onto his soul.

  He pulled her closer against him, and she nestled into the nook of his arm. He stared into the dark night for a long time before sleep finally washed over him.

  When he woke in the morning, she was gone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The storefront was rotting, the window dusty. The place had the feel of a tired old man on the doorstep of death. None of the passersby paid it attention, other than to take a few steps away on the sidewalk as their eyes slid from the perfume shop on one side to the milliner’s on the other, both of which were old but well-kept and somewhat respectable.

  Gemma glanced at the address and compared it to the one she’d written down earlier, before dawn when she’d been unable to fall back asleep. Lucas would probably be unhappy with her if he knew where she was, but she had not wanted to wake him. If she was being honest with herself, she was terrified to face him. The memory of his question haunted her and had caused the jolt that had woken her hours later. Had she actually uttered the words aloud, or did she imagine that? She was being cowardly, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to deal with him in the light of day yet. So she had fled.

  On a productive errand, she told herself.

  Something had been nagging at the back of her mind for a few days: the locations of the blackmail payments. Out of the ones they knew about, many were in open, public spots, such as the park. Or at large, public gatherings, such as the house party. But one of the earlier ones that Lucas had told her about, and which matched one of Perry’s locations, which she’d written down following their foray into his apartments, was different. She hadn’t recognized the address other than to realize that it was in a more disreputable part of town than the other respectable spots.

  She’d arrived by hackney, and she told the driver to wait for her.

  The air was crisp as it blew from the Thames, and she pulled her light shawl tighter against her shoulders. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. It was a warning sign. Uncle Artie had told her to always heed it, never to discount it as foolish. It had saved his life more times than he could count, he told her.

  But she’d come this far. Though it was still early, the bookshop door swung open when she tested it. She stepped out of the light and into the dark, musty store. She coughed as a plume of dust hit her.

  An elderly man crouched behind a desk in the front of the shop looked up over thick spectacles. His hair was a wild riot of white poking straight into the air over large, dangling ears. He was clearly in the middle of a book, his finger holding his place.

  “’Ello?” he croaked at her with a voice unused to talking. She wondered how he kept the shop running, even as dismal as it was. It would still take energy and money to keep it open. She smoothed a nervous hand over her stomach before walking closer to him.

  “Could you tell me about this shop, sir?” She had decided to go with general curiosity. Pretending to look for one thing in particular could limit her options depending on how he answered. “I was walking by and wanted to see what it was.”

  He peered at her skeptically for a minute, and she did not blame him. Anyone who passed by, especially a well-dressed countess, would not actually come into a place like his.

  He shrugged, though, and said, “Rare books. Very rare.” His eyes traced over her expensive clothing, sizing up his potential profits. “Museum upstairs.”

  She paused. “A museum?”

  He nodded his head toward the back of the shop. “Buy yer ticket here. Staircase in the back. Bring the key back when you finish.”

  “What is the museum for?” she asked, but she was already pulling out the price of admission. She dropped it in his wrinkled, papery hand as he heaved an annoyed sigh.

  “Intrigue. Scandal. Murder,” he said, dropping her coins into the till and pushing a pamphlet in her direction. “Been about thirty or so years now, not many go up there any longer. A few blokes recently. You’ll see that happen.” He gave her a look. “Scandals come back in style and the fancy folk like yerself want a little thrill.” He handed her a heavy brass key and motioned her away.

  Gemma weaved her way through tall, creaking bookshelves toward what she hoped was the back door to the store. The shop was a labyrinth of heavy leather tomes, but she found her way eventually. The key was in the lock, so she let herself out into the alley.

  The stench of it hit her first, and she grabbed for a handkerchief. It was a horrid mix of death, rot, and human excrement and she hurried up the rickety wooden staircase to the rooms at the top.

  She fumbled with the key for a moment before getting the heavy door to creak open. She pushed it mostly closed behind her and for the first time glanced at the pamphlet the shopkeeper had pushed into her hands. The front cover showed a woman clearly in distress, a hand up over her head as she cringed away from a hulking shadow of a man. A child hid in the corner of the page, hands over his ears, curled into a ball. “A murder most foul: The tale of the shopkeeper’s assistant and the gentleman,” was printed across the top in dark black bold letters.

  She opened the pages and continued to read the sad tale. The victim had been a widow with a young boy. She had been employed by the shopkeeper for several years after she’d shown up, newly pregnant and having just buried her husband. She had been quiet and kept to herself mostly, but the shopkeeper told investigators she’d had a lover in the few months leading up to her death. She got greedy and expected the gentleman to take up with her, he’d said, but he’d warned her
that the man would never marry her. He was a lord. The shopkeeper had not known who it was, but the widow had let that slip a time or two. There was even a hint of blackmail in the story.

  Gemma knew not to take the pamphlet for truth. These were common at attractions in London to drum up intrigue and ticket prices. But she could not help but think of Rathburn’s story, and how it could match the basic premise of the one she was reading. It said the assistant was a widow, but if she’d been pregnant and unmarried, there was no better way to survive than to pretend respectability. She remembered she had cursed herself for not coming up with the same solution when Lucas had proposed. She kept reading.

  One night the shopkeeper had heard screams from the widow’s rooms. He’d raced from the bed, he claimed, but had not made it in time. He arrived to find the widow sprawled out on the mattress, her throat cut and blood seeping from the wound. He’d found the boy in a closet, shaking and mute.

  What had made the story notable with the press—and why there was still a museum dedicated to the gruesome crime—was that police had found a symbol scrawled on the wall in blood. It was about the same time women had been turning up with the same symbol carved into their skin. Some were alive and had been sussed out by the police after the shopkeeper’s murder, and some were found washed up on the banks of the Thames, according to the pamphlet. The police surmised it might be the work of a madman loose on the streets of London, but none of the girls who were still alive could remember enough details about the man to help with the search. Or they chose not to remember. She could easily imagine how the tale would have sent all of London into horrified delight at the time, latching onto any murder as if it were the latest gossip from the ballrooms. Especially since the women showing up dead were only prostitutes.

  She stopped reading and glanced toward the mostly empty walls. Her stomach chilled at the sight of the faded dark brown symbol that still clung in traces to the wilting yellow paper. It was not the blood that disturbed her, though. It was that she recognized the symbol.